It’s that time of the year again. Even if it is the time to thankful, you are anything but grateful for the annual dinner that you and all of your distant relatives have to attend. There’s no end to the madness that ensues during dinner time, but with this simple guide, you’ll be ready to face off against your opponents.  

How to greet your relatives: First of all, don’t hide until the last second to come and greet them, or else they may continue to make sly remarks about your weight, height,   grades, or anything else to offend you throughout the entire dinner. If you want to be ahead of the game, be sure to be the one to fire your shots first; these first shots will prove to be useful later on. Go on ahead and passively comment on your aunt’s ugly dress, your uncle’s protruding belly, your cousin’s badly done eyeliner. Don’t. Hold. Back.

The Food: Let’s face it, your mom’s turkey never looked fully cooked. Either it was burned to the point where the only thing you could taste was ashes or it was so underdone that the turkey looked as if it was ready to jump off the table. Thankfully your relatives don’t leave a single family member out as their pets attend the dinner as well. If you want to avoid the burnt turkey, simply feed the rations to your grandmother’s overweight cat under the table. He’s so chubby that no one will notice the extra pounds.

Table Talk: This is the part of Thanksgiving night you hate the most. Once the adults are done arguing over politics for the first half hour of the dinner, your time for relaxation is up. To end up the victor, you must pull your your secret cards and face the most vicious of competitors: your relatives. Why do your relatives need to know your SAT scores? The answer is they don’t, but who’s going to stop them from asking? But you have a weapon: the family secrets. You have been listening in on your aunt’s frequent bathroom breaks as well as your uncle’s smoking intervals and now have all the juicy gossip that could ruin their social life as they know it. For instance, your aunt’s liposuction treatments are the actual reason she’s been losing weight instead of her so called “strict training regime”.  And your uncle’s been secretly taking funds from your cousin’s college savings account to gamble in horse-racing tournaments. Merely state a small tidbit of this information in conversation and your relatives alarmed faces will inform you that you’ve won. They will not bother you anymore. Now you can go back to binging “Criminal Minds” on Netflix.

Now you are prepared to face the ugliest of aunts and the angstiest of cousins, and don’t forget to make sure to grab the fattest turkey leg on the roast so you can eat it in slow motion in front of your starving aunt. Good luck!